Description



Steel Ice & Stone is a multi-media interactive installation.
Nine suspended LED panels and sensor-triggered sound create an environment for memory recall.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

¿Como Estas?

I came down with an infection. What a drag.

I consulted with a contact in town, who picked me up and said he'd bring me to the doctor's. The doctor's house, that is. After a few questions, he reached into a credenza in his dining room for a stethoscope and BP belt, checked my vitals and wrote two referrals for lab tests.

As I suffered through the pain silently (everybody hates an ailing guest), I awaited the results of the lab tests needed to confirm which hideous bug has crawled under my skin to make voiding a few drops every half hour so excruciatingly painful. Add this to the bacterial lung issue I caught the day after I got here and the rash on my neck from something else that bit me and I strain to tell myself it's going to get better. It must.

Thanks to digital imaging, the patient
knows exactly what they're
getting into as they walk through the
door.
There's no such thing as one-stop shopping medical care down here; and, judging from the sheer number of labs, radiology facilities, pharmacies and drug stores, dentists, pediatric centers, dialysis and colonic centers, on and on and on, the population seems to battle the same stuff I do on a routine basis, hopping from place to place to get healthy.

The health facilities open at 6:00 AM. Gathered in front of each clinic is a waiting crowd of spouses, family and friends of the patient; fruit, juice and coffee vendors to ease everyone's pain; and a parade of taxi drivers and motorcyclists offering their services to bring you home. Geez!

Inside is a receptionist, an electronic number dispenser and a second receptionist behind a protective window who, I suspected, takes the payments. Everyone wears a uniform. When entering, the first receptionist--a young man who doubles as a security guard--asks the reason for my visit. None of your business is not the approved answer. Instead, you politely answer questions like: do you need a general exam? Is it an emergency? Is it an x-ray, ECG or something else?

He directed me to the electronic number dispenser and showed me which of SIX tabs to push so I'm assigned to the proper second receptionist. Seated, I watched for my number on a flat screen TV alongside a silent soccer game. The waiting room is quiet, ice-cold and so clean you could eat off the white floor; a feat that catches your attention because outside is astounding confusion and dirt.

What you see is what you get.
To the second receptionist you show your physician's referral and she, like in the US, asks for identification--Official ID, please! 
Give me a break! If I'm writhing in pain in front of you, pleading for an appointment, the name on the script says Anita Giraldo, and I've got cash in hand to pay for medical services, why do I need to prove that I'm anyone other than Anita Giraldo? 

OK fine. Here's my passport and the cash. I was annoyed at myself for not having gotten traveler's health insurance, but you never really know if it's gonna be accepted in a place like this. But hey, an x-ray set me back $ 15.00 and the lab test $ 11.00. (I'm not joking. That wouldn't even have met the co-pay). Take my money.

Sat down again. A few minutes later a door opened and a technician called me in for the test. Now we're getting somewhere...Perfect painless phlebotomy technique--never felt the needle going in, couple of pulls and I was done. Come back Thursday.

Groan. I'm in horrible pain now! Smile. What do you suggest? She: Your physician gave you two pain medications. Fill them both and take them wisely. See you Thursday around 4:00. Me: Can't you send the results directly to the doctor? Apparently not.

The pharmacy experience was better. In a faintly perfumed, again, ice-cold shop with gliding cabinets, an impeccable man took the script, gave me a bunch of bubble foils (to protect the pills from melting). He went over the instructions THREE times and charged me $ 3.50 for two sets of pain killers to last fourteen days.

Keep smiling!

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